1. Field
The present specification relates generally to IP telephony, and more particularly to recording of voice conversations in IP telephony.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are transactions in enterprise, professional and other business contexts that give rise to a need to record telephone calls. A typical example of this requirement is the recording of calls to and from agents in a call center. For management purposes, calls to and from an agent may be recorded for later review by supervisory personnel to assess courtesy, sales effectiveness and productivity of agents. The recordings can either be triggered automatically by a management program, or manually by a human supervisor.
Another example is the recording of a confirmation by a customer of an order placed via a call center where the agent informs the customer that a verbal confirmation of the order is required and triggers a recording to memorialize the confirmation. In this case, the agent manually starts and stops the recording, which is thereafter archived along with other information relating to the transaction.
Further examples include professionals such as architects, lawyers, etc., who may wish to archive complete or partial telephone calls with clients or others. For example, an architect may wish to memorialize special instructions from a client that will entail extra costs on a project.
These call recordings are generic and easily managed in conventional voice communication systems. However, IP systems differ from conventional voice systems in that control and voice switching are distributed such that there may be no central monitoring location for recording purposes, and the use of end-to-end encryption of voice and control packets over the Ethernet or Internet requires special adaptation of the recording equipment used to record calls.
Also, call recording equipment must occasionally be retrofitted into existing IP telephony equipment. However, it is often costly and otherwise undesirable to make changes to the existing equipment for the purpose of enabling call recorder operation.